Research of The Link Between Social Class and Education

This assignment will explore the theoretical frameworks and how they can be used to analyse social class which is my chosen category of social identity. It will also explore how social class intersections with other social identities. I have chosen this topic as I believe social class plays a major role in your identity. I will be using Marx's and Willis (1997) framework to critically evaluate social class within education. I will also draw upon my personal experiences.

A social class is structured by all of the people who share the same market-class positions in terms of common economic interests. Social class involves a whole range of personal factors including lifestyle, culture, wealth, attitudes, accent, and breeding. Marx showed the significance of the aspects of the working class due to gender, nation, ability, physique and religion. Marx social class theory outlined three primary aspects which consisted of subjective factors, objective factors and lastly reproduction of class relations. 'Marx states that classes are based upon economic conditions independent of their own will and are forced into the most virulent contradictions by these conditions'.

Marx believed it is human nature to transform human life, and which the transformation creates the changes which we call history. His theory emphasised upon the human being as learning animal which changes our environment rather than adjusts to it. Therefore, we need change ourselves in order to change it and develop new skills. For Marx, the human capability to be self-determining is the opening point as a quality that belongs to humanity as a whole.

Marxist highly associated with the rise of capitalism within society, he wished this would bring change in the future. The two classes which Marxist outlined as vital were the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, he hoped for a change in these classes. In the manifesto of the communist party, Marx states that ‘society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat'. The bourgeoisie consists of the middle class who own most means of production and employment. They are known to exploit the working class. In contrast, the proletariat is the employees who work to earn their wage, they are identified as the social class who are alienated. Willis 1997 outlined how working-class students got working class jobs. This could be due to working-class parents having less value on education so therefore their children are less likely to be motivated and encouraged to work. However, Willis outlined that working-class students theoretical approach allows us to think about how identities are constructed, but also what its limitations are: in short, what the theory allows us to understand and what it leaves out

Within the Marxist theory of the 1970's education was frequently figured as an agency for the reproduction of capitalist social and economic relations. Education is closely linked with the economic system of society in two different ways. On one hand, having effective participation in education generally relies on having the economic resources to be able to fully have access to the opportunities the education system has to offer. However, on the other hand, as schools and colleges are major institutions of selection for the labour market, they arbitrate life probabilities within the economy. Ball (2004) outlined how social class is a major issue within education as there is unequal access to resources within education. This is due to social inequality which is still a major issue in today's society. Collins et al (2000) outlined how 'children from different backgrounds achieve different outcomes from school because they do not, in fact, receive the same schooling'.

The core elements of Marx's social class theory outlined how there has been a struggle between classes which has caused conflict. The recent years have observed rapid increases within the gap between broad sections of the population who have differential access to resources, money, qualifications, health and life chances. This is all due to what category you fall under within social class. People judge one another as superior or inferior in relation to what social class you hold. Within education, problems of social class have been predominantly addressed in connection with the obligatory education context. It has been stated that working-class children are more likely to experience ardently lower rates of attendance and are less likely to continue with further compulsory education. Bates and Risebrough (1993) outlined how young people from different social class classes do not attend similar types of educational institutions and nor do they achieve similar levels of qualifications and results. Marx outlined that the non-economic issues were vital, combined with economic issues, in achieving life chances and forming the patterns of social stratification. Marxist social class theory highly shows how your identity is constructed through what you are achieving in life.

Alienation is an aspect which is highly discussed throughout Marx's work. Alienation can be defined as an experience of when human needs go unmet. Marx's views upon alienation focused on the relationship between the workforce and the employer. Hegel wanted to overcome alienations in though as it is a problem of insufficient consciousness. Marx wanted to ground theory of alienation in material practices, as labour becomes a product and political economy views the worker as a working animal instead of human. Marx outlined how labour produces fabulous possessions for the rich whereas for the poor it is nothing but misery. Marxists Theory of class also includes class power within class struggle. The classes are therefore outlined completely on the aspect of class struggle. They do not predate class struggle and therefore 'they cannot be defined separately one from the other, but only through the social relations of an antagonism, which brings the one class in a confrontation with the other'. According to Marxist, the mode of production was the main aspect of social class relations which referred to the class positions and functions. Therefore, the mode of production defined the unique difference of a system of class power and class exploitation. What Marx is outlining here is your social class identity is also constructed through the means of your production.

However, there are issues with how Marx's theory can be mapped on to identity, for example, intellectual disability has much lower capitals within the culture and economic issues. Marx assumed ‘‘that it is possible to be a universal human being in a particular sense, at least in post-capitalist society', so that when there are no longer economic divisions' ‘we will be left with fellow-feeling for all human beings which transcends barriers of race, religion, nationality', and one might add gender, disability, sexuality and so on'. However, this has not worked as we are not in a post-capitalist society and yet still have some of the issues Marx mentioned to address. One the other hand Gender relations within education is something which has transformed over time as many girls, as well as boys, are doing really well within the education system. Many women, even married are now in paid employment and are even challenging men for the top jobs. A significant amount of women are no longer considered within the domestic sphere, they are now part of the sector of paid employment. However, many working-class boys are now taking on masculine identities in certain situations. The middle class are still offered better opportunities to the working class.

There is a large empirical overlap between education and social class; people with higher levels of schooling end up in higher social classes, and people belonging to the new middle classes of social/cultural specialists seem to be overly recruited from specific fields of study within educational levels. The effective class action within the education sector has always been the field of the middle class.